by Andrew Gates
He picked a random direction and started walking as the rest of the group stopped where they were. Jallah made his way through some trees and shrubs and eventually found a clearing. He turned around, making sure he had privacy. Once he was confident that he was alone, he turned back around and pulled out his penis.
Suddenly he realized that this was no ordinary clearing.
A circle of sticks covered the ground. It looked like they had been chopped down. A branchless tree loomed in the center of the circle, going up as far as Jallah could see.
Another mantis trap.
Jallah did not even realize he had already started peeing. He looked down as the last drops came out. He quickly shook himself off and zipped up his jumpsuit, wanting to spend as little time here as possible.
He darted back through the woods, practically skipping like a deer.
“It’s a trap! Another trap!” he hollered as he ran back to the others. When he reached them, they all looked confused and concerned.
“What is it?” Dan asked, walking towards him.
“A branchless tree. There’s another one over there,” Jallah explained, pointing.
“The mantises,” Margery added.
“It just means they’ve set a trap. It doesn’t mean they’re here right now. The mantises don’t live in the forest. They fly in with their ships once the trap is triggered,” Dan said, trying to calm them down.
“You didn’t trigger the trap, did you?” Margery asked, accusingly.
“What? No!” Jallah could not believe she would think he would do such a thing.
“If the mantises set a trap here, that means they can come this far out from the coast,” Ophelia said.
“That’s true,” Dan agreed.
“A mantis trap also means that they are looking for something to trap. The fact that they have one set up here means there must be a lot of zombies in this area,” Margery said.
Dan did not respond. If anything, he seemed to be considering her argument.
“Why set up a trap here if there’s nothing to get?” she said, building onto her own point.
“So what you’re saying is: this must be an area with a lot of zombies?” Jallah asked. He hoped he misunderstood.
“Yeah,” Margery replied, nodding.
Damn.
Dan sighed.
“Let’s get through here as fast as we can then. We’ve been okay so far. Perhaps we’re just in a bubble,” he explained.
“A bubble? What do you mean by that?” Ophelia wondered. There was a sense of desperation in her voice.
“I mean, we didn’t see any zombies for the last few weeks. For whatever reason, this might just be an area with a higher population of them. Once we pass through it, maybe we’ll be okay,” Dan said.
Ophelia lowered her head and put her hands on her face. She seemed distressed.
Jallah gulped. He found himself scanning the area. He felt truly afraid again.
He instinctively took a few steps toward Margery. She reached out and held onto him. Her grip was comforting, though not enough to calm his nerves.
“We’ll need to stay up tonight. The watch goes back into effect,” Dan explained. “We’ll all have to pitch in, take shifts.”
“I’ll go first,” Jallah volunteered. He knew he would not be able to sleep anyway.
“We’ll wait until we go to sleep to decide. Right now, let’s just worry about getting out of this area as soon as we can,” Dan said.
Jallah nodded in agreement. Ophelia pulled her head from her hands and nodded too.
“Good. Let’s go,” Dan said once everyone looked ready.
The four of them continued on again. This time, Jallah checked behind every tree or rock as they walked along. He turned his head at the faintest sound. I’m paranoid, he realized.
For weeks, he thought he was safe. He thought they’d made it out. But they hadn’t. They’d simply just moved from one dangerous place to the next.
An hour ago, Jallah was confident that Dan’s plan was right. He was confident that they were safe.
Now, he was not so sure.
IT WAS QUIET.
The 52-year-old woman stood alone in the hallway. Sanja knocked on the metal door. It felt cold against her knuckles. She could not believe she was going to go through with this. Not in a million years did she expect to do what she was about to do or say what she was about to say.
The door slid open. Zoran stood on the other side, carrying a large box in one arm. He seemed surprised to see Sanja at the door. He lowered the box to the floor.
“Sanja,” he said.
“Just the man I was looking to see. Sorry to bother you at work,” she replied, walking in. She passed right by him and into a storage area full of boxes. Other workers walked back and forth, carrying things. They seemed to pay her no mind.
“Should I be worried?” Zoran asked. He followed her in.
“No, not at all. In fact, I think you’re going to like what I have to say,” she admitted. She glanced at a plastic crate behind her. “Can I sit on this?” she asked.
“You’re asking for permission to do something?” Zoran replied in a teasing tone. Sanja did not appreciate it.
“Well, I don’t want to sit on it if it’s something important.”
“No, no, it’s nothing. You can sit there if you want,” Zoran said, waving his hands.
Sanja sat down and looked up at Zoran, once again surprised by his physique. She cleared her throat, closed her eyes and opened them again.
“I came here today to say something to you that I don’t say often. In fact, I don’t have a lot of experience with this,” she started.
Zoran seemed genuinely intrigued in what she was about to say. He pulled a box out and sat on it, directly across from her.
“I came to tell you that I’m sorry and that you were right.”
Zoran’s eyes lit up a like a child receiving a Federation’s Day gift. He smiled and opened his mouth wide in astonishment.
“I know, I know, no reason to blow this out of proportion, Zoran,” Sanja said. “I was living in the past, trying to function in the afterlife the way I had in the real world. I was blind to the way the system works down here. I’ve come to accept that now.”
Zoran stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. He turned away from her for a second but then sat back down and looked into her eyes. He seemed genuinely surprised.
“Wow, Dr. Parnel is apologizing and admitting that she was wrong. This isn’t a joke, is it?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head, “not a joke.”
“What led you to this revelation?”
She sighed.
“A few weeks ago, actually, the same day we last spoke, the surface survivors discovered a maelstrom neutron missile. Do you remember?”
Zoran nodded.
“I do. I remember you left the news briefing early to go somewhere.”
“Well, I went to see Baltir. I hoped he could hack into the missile and give me control.”
“I’m not surprised. To be honest, I figured that’s what you were doing,” Zoran admitted. “And did you get control?”
“No,” Sanja replied, shaking her head again, “Baltir was not able to get in.”
“What did you want to do with it?”
Sanja threw her hands into the air.
“I don’t even know! That’s exactly the thing. I can’t get my head around it. It’s like you said, I was desperate. I had unrealistic expectations.”
“So you wanted a missile and you didn’t even know what you wanted to do with it if you got it?” Zoran asked.
“You could say that.”
Zoran chuckled and shook his head.
“My, my, I’ll say, that’s even more desperate than I thought.”
“I guess I just figured if I had control of something powerful, I could use it to blackmail or muscle my way into some sort of position. I don’t really know,” she let out a deep breath. “I spent so much t
ime climbing the ladder in the station. Now that I’ve fallen off the ladder, I guess it’s been hard for me to find my way back up.”
“Well Sanja, it’s big of you to admit this. I’m impressed. It’s not like you to say things like this,” Zoran said.
“Thank you, Zoran.”
“So are you done trying to climb the ladder, then?”
Sanja chuckled.
“Hell no,” she replied in a heartbeat. “Not by a long shot.”
Zoran rolled his eyes.
“Then… then what’s this all about? What have you learned?”
“That I need to change the way I do things. I still want to climb the ladder, but now I know that intimidation, scheming, blackmailing, it’s not going to work like it used to.”
“No, it won’t. So what is your plan now?”
“To show that I can be useful to the FCP as a whole. That’s how I can get my power back,” she explained.
Zoran looked confused. He did not say anything, but he did not need to.
“Allow me to elaborate,” she said. “Right now, all anyone seems to care about is the survival of humanity as a whole. Self-interest seems to have taken a back seat.”
“I would agree with that,” Zoran replied. “That’s what I was trying to explain to you a few weeks ago.”
“Well, I didn’t get it then, but I do get it now. And I realize that if I want to make it in the FCP, I need to show that I am useful for the entire group’s survival as a whole.”
“Okay, and how are you going to do that?” Zoran asked.
“That’s… that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I was hoping you could tell me what to do next.”
Zoran stared at her in astonishment. He seemed dumbstruck.
“Me? Why me?”
“You are one of my advisors, aren’t you?”
Zoran let out a deep exhale and shook his head.
“I told you, that’s my old job. I have a new job now,” he motioned to the room full of boxes around him. “I have to deliver this stuff. That’s what I do.”
“I hired you because I thought you had potential.”
“And I got a new job. Sorry, Sanja. I just can’t. I don’t want to get mixed up in all of this.”
“So you can’t or you don’t want to? Which is it?”
Zoran sighed, stood up and threw his hands in the air.
“I… I don’t know. Both maybe,” he said. He sounded frustrated. “Look, I appreciate the offer and I’m glad you actually learned something from my little speech the other day, but there’s really nothing I can help you with now.”
Damn Zoran. I opened up to him, I admitted that he was right and he still refuses me!
Sanja stood up and glared at him.
“Then what was the point of me opening up to you?” she asked.
“Just because you admit defeat doesn’t mean I will help.”
“I didn’t admit defeat. I simply said I was going about this all wrong and that you were right about me.”
“Okay fine, it’s not defeat, but you know what I mean.”
Sanja pointed in his face and stared him down. He did not move.
She wanted to say something. She wanted to put him in his place. But she could not think of any words to say. After a few seconds, she simply let out a deep breath and walked out of the room, slamming the metal door behind her.
The cleaning woman took a sponge to the table in the President’s suite. She hated everything about her job, but she had to admit, she enjoyed the opportunity to clean rooms like these. Even if it was empty, just being here made her feel powerful again.
Right now she needed to feel powerful.
It had been a little over an hour since Sanja met with Zoran. In that time, their meeting had been the only thing on her mind. She paid little attention to what she was cleaning and probably missed a spot or two, but she did not care. The cleanliness of this facility did not interest her.
Sanja could not believe how she’d embarrassed herself in front of Zoran like that. She opened up to him, she admitted her faults and he rejected her, just as he had before. To him, she was nothing. She was just a nuisance to be cast aside.
I came to you for help the first time and I was desperate and not thinking clearly. Now I come to you again with an open mind and you think you can treat me the same way! Without realizing it, she squeezed the sponge so hard that the soap oozed out all over her hands and onto the table.
Sanja sighed and put the sponge aside. She turned to her supply cart and pulled out a towel. It was grey and disgusting, but she used it nonetheless. She scrubbed a few times without really looking and eventually realized that it was clean.
She sighed. This sucked. This really sucked.
Knock, knock, knock!
Somebody was at the door. Sanja looked up, curiously. Who knocks on the President’s door?
The door opened and a guard entered the room. He was a tall young man with dark hair and a sweaty face.
“Excuse me, we need you to finish up in here,” the guard explained.
Sanja looked around the room. There was a lot more work to do.
“I haven’t finished yet,” she replied.
The guard shook his head.
“We’re going to need this space, ma’am. The Security Council has called an emergency meeting.”
An emergency meeting? He had her attention.
“Oh, I guess I should be going then,” she said. She intentionally left her cart behind and walked out of the room. Her hands were still wet with soap, but that did not matter. She simply wiped them onto her dirty black t-shirt.
The guard let her pass and then turned his back to the outside of the President’s door. Sanja grinned and kept walking down the hall. She did not make it far before several well-dressed members of the military began filing in, followed by men and women in suits.
This is my chance, she thought.
She turned back around and joined the crowd of men and women walking into the President’s suite. When she reached the door, the guard stopped her.
“Hey, where are you going?” he asked.
“Sorry, I forgot to grab my things when I left. My cleaning supplies are still in there,” she explained.
The guard peered around the door and spotted the cart inside the room. He turned back around and nodded.
“Grab it real quick,” he ordered.
Sanja nodded and smiled as she passed by him.
The crowd started filling up more and more now. The doorway was packed with people trying to make it inside. Sanja grabbed hold of her cart and slowly started wheeling it out. She intentionally took her time. Then, as she expected, the guard entered.
“We’ve got too many people coming in here. You might have to wait,” he explained, holding his hand out.
“Oh, that’s fine,” Sanja said, innocently.
What a fool. You played right into my little game, she thought.
Sanja moved her cart to the corner of the room and stood still, trying to be as hidden as possible. She hoped she would not stand out too much in her ragged clothes, but if there was one thing she learned in her new role, it was that nobody ever paid any attention to the cleaning woman.
Suddenly President Ortega entered with guards on all sides. Sandra Walter was with him, stuck to his hip like a toddler to her father. She was pathetic.
Like last time they had been together in this room, Ortega took a seat in the center of the long desk that lined the wall. His chair faced the inside of the room, away from the desk. He seemed so regal.
More people continued to enter. There was no sign of that sweaty guard anymore. Sanja hoped he would continue to be distracted with crowd control.
Sanja spotted the naval commanders as they entered together. Jordan Grey was first. Seeing him again was strange. They used to be so close, but now they were like familiar strangers to each other. She missed him. Part of her wondered if he missed her too.
Baltir followed the commanders in. He was w
alking much better now. Sanja did not see a cast or boot or anything. He seemed like he was back to his old self.
Fewer people entered now. The flow around the door slowly came to a stop. Sanja had not been identified yet. It seemed nobody paid her any mind. She continued to stand still, blending in as best she could. The guard suddenly entered. He looked around, as if he were searching for Sanja.
“Leave us,” the President said.
“But I was waiting for-”
“He said to leave,” Sandra Walter repeated in an aggressive tone.
The guard nodded and exited the room, closing the door behind him.
I did it, Sanja realized. I’m here in the meeting and nobody notices. Idiots.
“Thank you all for coming on such incredibly short notice,” Commander Grey started. He walked up to the center of the room, directly before the President. He turned to face everyone and scanned the area. Sanja ducked, trying to keep her head down.
“I know many of you came right from the assembly room, so I appreciate you all making it over here across the FCP.”
Jordan kept his head still now. It seemed he was done assessing the room. Sanja raised her head again.
“We’ll get right down to business,” he said. “Only minutes ago, Baltir Yavenna, our computer expert, was successfully able to hack into the missile defense system on the planet’s surface. We now have complete access to the functioning maelstrom neutron missile discovered by the survivors.”
He did it. That bastard actually did it. Sanja was amazed. She was starting to think it was impossible.
“We have complete control of the weapon’s targeting system. In short, we can send this bomb anywhere on the planet remotely from here,” the commander explained.
A hand raised in the front. Sanja could not tell who it was, but it looked like a man’s arm.
“Excuse me, how do we know it works? We haven’t tested it, have we?” a male voice asked.
“Negative. We have done no tests. In essence, we will only get one shot,” the commander answered. “As for putting your mind at ease, Mr. Yavenna has assured me that he has control of the device. He is the best at what he does. I would take his word for it.”